In the last weeks I had much personal stuff to do, but today was reserved for Xu-Fu and was able to catch up with a lot of stuff! The list is longer than usual, hang tight ^^

1. Giveaway winnerSadly Machiavelli never claimed his Cap’n Crackers, so I had to draw yet another winner. This time it goes to:

SeiriCerin#2343 as shown in this super cute image!
Please get back to me within 2 days to grab your loot code :-)

2. New addition to the teamNot exactly “new”, Jagûar has been around for a long time and worked very hard to get the entire Falcosaur strategy section up and filled with strategies! Strategy Curator is only a logical next step. Welcome to the team (again^^)!

3. Patch 8.1 PreparationThe next patch brings a new pet battle dungeon: Gnomeregan, as well as a new family achievement. Family Battler! Both sections are set up and can be filled with strategies already.

4. New alternatives sortingA tiny change, but it will have some obvious effects. I made a tiny tweak to the sorting of alternatives.
Before:Favourite > Pets in Collection > Tags > Average Rating
Now:Favourite > Pets in Collection > Average Rating > Tags

Having tags overrule the rating had some weird effects, and with the rating and favourite system being used widely now, it makes more sense to swap this around. Sorry for any confusion this might cause now!

5. Hazelnutty’s videosLong established in the pet battling world, Hazelnutty is putting out some awesome videos that I can only recommend.
Very recently she published a video with her best tips and tricks for BfA pet battling, including some very nice words about Xu-Fu!
It’s only appropriate to return the favour, so go watch the video and ideally her channel, it’s worth it for every pet battler:
Watch the video

6. More absence, oh no.Last but not least I have another personal note. The last two weeks of October I will be almost entirely offline and there will not be much new coming from my side on Xu-Fu. That might stretch well into November - depending on how this “real life” thing works out. But I’m not gone for good and will continue working on the page once I’m back! Promise :-)

Hazelnutty has saved me more than a few times. I only have one minor issue with her pet battle videos. They are 2-4 years ago and some of the moves have changed. She suggests moves that can no longer be used together. I still love them and I am a subscriber, just a little pet peeve of mine. Another great one is Lapz Gaming. He is simple and to the point. Sometimes his strategies are almost too easy. Love Xu-Fu's site, thanks for all your hard work.

I'm noticing that some pets are showing as not collected on strategy pages, when I do actually have them. My pet collection is up to date, and when I perform a search for it, it does appear on my pet collection page. I'm seeing them specifically today on the BFA Family Battler strats, but not sure if it is site wide or not.

Oooh, even within the BFA strats, the same pet is showing as not collected on one strat, and collected on another. Same pet, Snarly. This happened with another pet as well but I can't remember off the top of my head which one it was.

Hey! Could you check please if the pet is perhaps used in this strategy several times? That's a common thing then. If that's not the case, please tell me which strategies that is exactly and I'll have a look! Thanks!

Hi Aranesh! Is it possible that if it's an option in one of the other pet slots, but not the one selected specifically, that it shows as not collected? Let me see if I can locate the strats that I'm seeing it on :)

I have all four of the fishing daily pets, (Snarly/Toothy/Muckbreath/Chuck). Snarly (mine is lvl 1) is default chosen in the second slot, and shows as not collected ("Your pet: Missing") in slot 3, regardless of me selecting one of the other three fishing daily pets that is NOT Snarly in slot 2. I have a lvl 25 Toothy who I'd imagine should be default chosen in slot 2?

I'll look for the other battles where they use 2 of those four fishing daily pets and see if they all do it or not.

It seems that if the pets are the first ones selected for x spot, that if they are options in any slot to the right, they are shown as not collected. If there is a pet autoselected in x slot to the right, it's *not* showing as not collected in the slot to the left. (I hope that's clear? The logic follows that in instances where this is happening from what I have specifically noted since I started looking for the logic pattern)

Also, my pet that is 25 of the 4 options available is not being autoselected for a space where it's an option, which I seem to remember not being the case before, I thought it always selected the 25 option? Is this change, perhaps, because pets automatically adjust in level to your pets, so it's not going to pick your 25 first? If that's the case...I'd kind of like the option to retain the ability to just select my 25s site-wide?

Hazelnutty has quickly become my favorite guide producer, couldn't have done Uldir without her. It's very information-dense, but I'd rather pause a few seconds to process everything, than listen to other guide makers ramble on about irrelevant stuff.
I'll check out her pet battle guides too!

Hazelnutty is a gift! I really like her videos for the same reasons, too! I just want to see what it looks like and know what it does in a short window of time, and she does exactly that. And she's enjoyable to listen to!

Congratulations !(but next time please say at first that it's a random roll, it was amusing to find a good place and create a fitting mog but I have to admit that I don't participate to random roll contest, rng and me are ennemies since forever XD)

- The 2 pet codes only work for EU, sorry!
- You have to post with a Xu-Fu account. If you don't have one, top right to sign up, they are free :-)
- Your post must include a link to an image of your character with your favourite pet of choice. Pirate clothing optional but for extra style!
- You can post a picture until October 3rd. Shortly after, the 2 winners will be selected at random
- Winners are announced here and notified via direct message on Xu-Fu's. If someone doesn't claim their code, new winners will be selected.
- Only one entry per user, obviously :-)

Thanks everyone for reaching out about volunteer positions! Still looking, so if you're interested, give me a shout on Discord.

Meanwhile, I have a few news to share around Xu-Fu:

1. A warm (re-) Welcome to the first three volunteers: Nyari, Remte and Morazor!

Nyari will work mostly as News Writer and Content Creator for the German version of the page and I will help develop some better tools to make localized versions of the page easier to navigate.

Remte has always been very active in posting advice and finding errors on the page and will now be a Strategy Curator.

Morazor is the author of Magpie and as such the role Content Creator can't be more fitting!

2. You now have the option to include the strategy steps within rematch strings! It is on by default, but you have a slider right below the Rematch button to turn that off, if you wish.

3. A shout out to all strategy creators: I will remove the option to modify tags. Unfortunately, the tags system has been used very inconsistently, and sometimes even to push new strategies to the top by adding every positive tag available without them being true. In the future, more tags will be automated (especially the "Reliable" one), and only strategy curators will have access to tags. In that light, I will also remove all custom tags that have been added so far.
Sorry for any confusion or inconvenience because of this!

To point 3: Is it even possible to include strategy in the rematch string? It hasn't worked for me yet with any import. Yes I made sure the slider was in the correct position, I definitely have the strategy information in the paste.

A couple of minor issues:
1. The rematch string no longer includes minimum health (I think it used to?).
2. Some characters are encoded, e.g. apostrophes appear as #039.
3. This might be a Rematch bug. Sometimes the notes are empty after import. Strategy 1706 is an example of this (if you manually edit out the rematch string that the creator included in the notes then it imports okay).

1. It was never minimum health but minimum level. That should still be in! If it isn't somewhere, let me know please!
2. Fixed :-)
3. That's a bummer. It's because in this specific strategy, there is a rematch string within the comment which rematch recognizes and tries to add 2 teams. If you remove the rematch string manually from the import string comment, it will work. There is, unfortunately, nothing I can do about it.

With the addition of user-created-strategies, Xu-Fu has entered a new phase and is supporting more and more pet battlers out there in the world. Time to become a bit more structured and organised!
Volunteers have been a key part of Xu-Fu and I am both proud and grateful for the help I have received. Going forward, I want to make it a better experience for everyone involved, with a clearer role description, better access rights and more decision power for those who help with the project.

Here is what I need to make Xu-Fu even better:

News Writer (1-2)
Are you always up to date with everything pet related that’s going on? Would you like to moderate the News section of one of the most visited pet battling pages worldwide? Get in touch, I would love to hand over the News to someone who is eager to share news and updates on the pet battling world!
You’ll have access to my own article editor and it will be your decision what to post and when to post. And if you need any new tools, I am more than happy to add what you need!

Content Creator As a Content Creator, you own a section of the page containing your favourite topic. Are you a mad pet PvP mastermind who wants to share your insights? Do you love the funny interactions pets do and want to write about it? Or maybe you created a tool that you want to host somewhere and Xu-Fu’s might be a good place? Let me know, let’s discuss, and if we agree on it, you’ll get your own section with full editing rights and my support if you need any custom features coded.

Strategy Curator (1-2)
Every day new strategies are added to Xu-Fu’s. As a strategy curator, you will be the checks and balances. That does not mean going through each and every strategy to test it, but to have an eye on trends, to identify the very best ones and flagging them as staff picks. It could also mean reaching out to strategy creators who made mistakes and asking them if they want to fix that, or worst case, removing it from the page. This role comes with full editing rights for all strategies on Xu-Fu.

TranslatorMany parts of the page are being auto-translated already, but there are some gaps and some languages are not covered at all. If you visit Xu-Fu in your native language and want to help fill those gaps, please get in touch! The same languages as World of Warcraft are supported: German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Korean and Chinese (simplified).

Any of this sounds good to you? Please send me a private message on Discord (Aranesh#6150) and let’s talk!

When Legion was released, I struggled very hard to keep up with the world quests and test+add strategies. Now with BfA, since everyone can upload strategies, every one of the new quests has a number of different alternatives available already.

It worked out very well, all thanks to you, the creators of all those strategies out there. A BIG THANK YOU!

And as a little treat I've just completed the last important feature for it: A "My Strategies" section!
Hover over your name on the top right, check it out. You'll see a summary of your strats, how they do, and you get notifications if someone writes a comment on your strategy :-)

Love what you've done with the site since I used to use it back in Legion. One thing that I think would be very useful though is a summary page that lists all the pets sorted by how many different strategies they are used in. maybe even cross referenced with your collection to only show pets you don't have already. That way you would better know what pets are used a lot and would be worth getting.

Not sure if I'm a big fan of the "upload strategies" feature. Each time I go back to a strat that I've used before (and saved the team because it worked), the front page for that particular team is now a new team and I either have to search for mine which worked before or sometimes I try out the new one and it doesn't work at all and I'm scrolling through the list trying to figure out which one was mine again. I liked the old way where the tried and true teams were the first on the page at least instead of the newest uploaded "well this is what I liked and worked for me" shows up. It's no better than scrolling through Wowhead comments almost. Maybe a ranking system so new strats with low ratings fall down off the main page would be a better way to handle newly uploaded strats at least.

Such a ranking system is already in place, but I think it needs a few tweaks to work better. Strategies rated higher should stay on top. "New" strategies do not get any preference, that is just informational but has no impact on the sorting.
However, what I noticed is that some strategies get filled with positive tags, which do have an impact on the sorting. That's something I have to review and change.

One more thing, if you are logged in and put a favourite (heart) to a strategy, it will always be shown on top for you!

I think the problem is that a new upload has 5 stars, likely due to the person uploading it rating it himself. So if a good one sits at 4.9, the new one will have preference. Probably better to require a certain amount of votes before it goes on top of everything else.

Also, the amount of votes and favourites has an effect as well. Strategies that have many votes (10+ and then different further steps), the value of the star rating is increased. So even if a new strat has 5 stars by the creator, another strategy with 4.5 or so, but with many different voters saying this, will still be rated higher.
This of course only kicks in after a certain time. As long as most strategies are pretty new, it has little effect.

The release of a new addon is always a very special time. All that anticipation, culminating into the first hours of entering new zones and experiencing all the new content that we only read about or maybe saw some videos. Or played on the beta, but it's not the same right?

All that is going to happen in just one hour. For that, Xu-Fu and I wish you an amazing start into this new expansion. Let everything else be aside for a while, embrace the experience, and enjoy it!

Im having issues with importing the Rematch Strings into my Niggles: Pet Teams addon for all of the BFA pet battles. Each time I try to import a string, I get the message "The pet team's opponent is unknown." In addition, I am noticing that none of the BFA pet trainers are in the drop down list of available opponents. (this may be a addon issue) Do you guys have any suggestions on how I can get this importing feature working again?

Thank you for your response. I downloaded the Rematch addon, which allowed me to import the strings. Before, I only had Niggles: Pet Teams, without rematch. Is there an easy way I could import all my teams I had setup through Niggles into rematch? I'm Dreading having to remake every single team since Draenor launch.

Niggles: Pet Teams relies on info about the pet tamers, such as a portrait and WoW's unique ID. I didn't have an opportunity to gather that info until I hit 120 and opened world quests. As the pet tamers are coming up as World Quests, I am gathering the info. An interim version with the first 18 pet tamers was released.over the weekend. A version with the remaining 6 will be released as soon as I can get the info for them. There is an 'Any Opponent' that can be used along with the 'Team Name' field for pet tamers that aren't yet known.
Niggles: Pet Teams doesn't have an export feature to Rematch. It would be tricky to convert the notes for Rematch, particularly if they are in the HTML format.

What's that ominous Plus sign right next to each strategy? Your way to add strategies to Xu-Fu of course!

It was long overdue and from this day onward you can stop adding your strategies into comments, because now you have access to a full new toolset allowing you to upload it right there as a new alternative!

Make sure to check out the Strategy Creation Guide if you have questions, or want to know how everything works exactly: https://www.wow-petguide.com/index.php?m=StratCreationGuide

And if you have any feedback or questions, post them here or send me a message!

Added my first strat on Aulier's Master of Pets wq page. I found it quick and easy to use, really simple to figure out, and it has all the bells and whistles for Rematch strings and scripts. Fantastic. I look forward to adding a few more. Top job. :D

One month to go for Battle for Azeroth, and this week the pre-patch will hit already! With so many changes coming in that patch, a blog entry about it is long overdue.

1. Use your pet charms today!
Pet Charms as we know it will lose in their value immensely. With the pre-patch comes a new currency and you won't be able to buy upgrading stones with the old charms anymore. So if you still need some or want to stockpile, spend them today!
Details: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20762158027?page=5#post-82

2. Pre-Patches break stuff
Especially the API, the data source that Xu-Fu is using to grab info from the WoW servers like pet skills or your collections. It's very likely that some of this will break in the process. In the past it took Blizzard about 1-2 weeks to get everything back together. In the meanwhile, you might see incorrect pet stats or weird errors. Sorry!

3. Xu-Fu is not ready :-(
I am working hard on getting things done before the addon hits, but I did not make it in time for the pre-patch. Unfortunately, and to my regret, some parts of the page will be outdated from tomorrow on. That is especially true for any strategy involving the Teroclaw Hatchling (looking at you there, pet dungeons!).

I would like to shed some light on why it takes so long, and why there is nothing visibly changing on the page in the meanwhile. From the very start, the user system had one larger goal: allowing every user to upload their own strategies. To make that possible I needed a user login system, and breeds, and a better handling of alternatives - all that is working towards that one goal.
Previously I had a little admin tool where my helpers and I could change and update strategies. In all these update processes, it broke and simply to save time, I did not repair it but continue working on the new strategy editing mode. That's why we were not abble to update all the strategies in time.

But, I plan to have this all done *before* Battle for Azeroth, and it looks promising! Fingers crossed and thank you so much for being patient with me through the next few weeks :-)

Thank you for all your work, Xu-Fu! How can we help?
The Terroclaw hatchling is actually still pretty OP if you use Nature's Ward and Alpha Strike together. It does last half as long, but with 2 lvl 25s I got through Wailing Caverns without having to change strategy much at all.

That's good to know !
I'm in the final stretch of a new system where everyone can upload their own strategies. Once that is released, you can help immensely by adding alternatives where the Teroclaw isn't working at all anymore :-)
I'll post more about this asap!

Thank you for all your hard work and for making this site possible! I freaking love it and without you I would never have gotten all these achievements and pets! I wish there would be a donate button (or am I blind?)

EDIT: Oh, there is one on the frontpage... Was coincidence that I saw the Icon and always wondered where it went (bookmarked a different page^^). Donated!

Gotta second Mya's comment. It's easy to forget how much we rely on this guide until a day comes along like today. Major pet talent changes and I'm finding that I'm lost trying to win battles that I used to just breeze through with the guides.

Another update already!
This one went much smoother than I expected, and I'm super happy about it. It is feature 2 of 3 core things I need to complete before Battle for Azeroth hits the shelves. That gives me another 6 weeks from now to finish up and have Xu-Fu ready for the next addon. Yay!

Here's what's new today: dynamic alternatives!

The page started out without the possibility to have more than one strategy for a fight. Rather quickly it became necessary to add more, so I created the system that has been active for almost 3 years now. It first supported up to 9 alternatives, but that soon became too few and I extended it to 15. And now, with the plans I have, that won't do anymore.
This release removes the limit entirely. But with more alternatives, a better sorting system needs to be in place and that's what you will notice immediately.
The list of strategies is no longer set by myself or a moderator. Instead, when you open up a fight, all available alternatives are checked for a few criteria:
- is it one of your favourite strategies?
- do you own the pets?
- are there good or bad tags on it?
- what is the rating of the strategy?

According to that, the page will pick the highest one to show you, and the alternatives menu shows you all the others in the order of their likely importance to you. Some of that you can control directly:
- if you set a strategy as favourite for example, it will always be shown first.
- In your Settings you can also select which tags are important to you and which you dislike - if you don't mind TCG pets for example, move it to the ones you prefer and more of these strategies will show up.

Likely, giving a strategy a fitting rating is now so much more important and will help you and everyone else to have a better experience.

This is quite a big change in how the page works and I am very curious to hear your feedback. Please let me know what you think of it.

Very nice looking ! And it allows to have a summary view with only one click.

But there is one little "bug" : the wowhead tooltip with pet names is not the translated one. For me, everywhere on this site, the pets names are right translated (in french), and not on this new view.

Nice update - is there a way to show the comment about the strategy in the mouseover? For most I doubt it's too important but for the Erris / Kura section I used to like being able to see the comment of "this strategy is for Dusty/Spores/etc" - makes it easier to find which one I'm looking for when those NPCs can have like 5 teams. As it is now you have to click on them until you find the right group - unless I'm missing something. Thanks for the site!

Today I am very happy to introduce a new section to Xu-Fu’s Pet Guides. A topic that has been neglected for way too long: Pet PvP!

Rosqo, well known in the pvp world of pet battles, volunteered to work on this section and will fill it with life. He is creating many pet related videos on Youtube to share his team setups and the thoughts behind them. Definitely worth checking out!

The first page to go online is an overview of the recommended pets for PvP, separated into Tiers which are based on how often these pets appear and how powerful they are when facing human opponents.

Have a look at the new section and let us know what you think! Or if you have a different opinion, or maybe you think a pet is missing? We certainly would like to know :-)

Wonderful news! I've done a little PvP pet battling with mixed results, using the info from numerous sites. It's been difficult to correlate all the suggestions into a strategy of my own. Looking at the info provided so far in the new PvP section, I think it will be a great help. I've completed most of the other pet battle achievements and was wondering how I was ever going to make any headway on the many PvP achievements. As always, thanks so much for the great website, Xu-Fu!

Oh wow! That sounds great! I'm strictly PvE player and was always intimidated to try PvP-ing with pets, I hope this will help me overcome it. I have nearly all other pet achievements and not a single PvP one. The Tiers section looks helpful; the abundance of new pets we received each expansion made things even "worse" for me, I would never know which ones to choose to even start the whole PvP thing.

First of all, my apologies for the long maintenance! There was a LOT of work that needed to be done for this update and half the page wasn’t working during it anyway :D

The Battle Tables desperately needed an overhaul. They are the core part of the page, and yet they were old and dusty. Not any more! It's all fixed, brought up to modern standard, loads much faster and most importantly a ton of new features:

So, what’s new?

BreedsYes, finally! But what's better than breeds? Stat requirements, such as "more than 280 speed”! That’s in as well, and Xu-Fu shows possible breeds automatically based on those requirements. Sweet!

Automatic substitute finderThe pride of the show. Don’t have that Mudshell Conch? No problem! How about those other twenty critters with the same skills? Xu-Fu now checks for every pet if there are others of the same family that have the required skills and stats, and you can leaf through them on the fly. *points at the bottom part of the screenshot*

Collection check-upNot sure if you even have any of those critters? Don’t worry, if you’re logged in, Xu-Fu shows you right there on the pet card if you have a pet or not and what level or breed it has. And also if that breed might work or not. Three green bars at the bottom? All cool, go for it.

Crowd intelligenceIt’s hard for a strategy creator to test or calculate every odd eventuality. Now you can help with that more easily: open up the additional info panel and you can send in your attempt(s). Xu-Fu will record those and refine the strategy!

Phew, that's quite the int buff right there, but there is more!

- Ratings! Give that clever strategy you love some extra love… I mean stars, give it some stars.
- Favourites! One heart to give per tamer. That will have some real use later on, promise.
- New rematch format. More automatism, less hassle. And yes, the substitute finder works with that as well.
- Tags. Prefer a reliable strategy over a fast one? Cool! Later on, you’ll be able to filter strategies based on your preferred tags.
- Tamer experience. See that “High XP” tag? Hover over it. You won't regret it.
- Enemy pets. So you won't forget who the real enemy is - visible in the additional info panel.
- Coordinates. Click on it to copy TomTom waypoints to your clipboard.

Now that's it. And it’s a lot. Before I'll send you off to explore the new shiny features, let me say a big, big thank you to:

- Simca for his amazing add-on Pet Battle Breed ID and for sharing the breed info with it.
- Jerebear and everyone else who contributed to gathering XP information about tamers.
- Grainne and Remte for their testing, feedback and input, especially on the substitute finder.

Enjoy the new features, and let me know what you think about them!
I'm extremely curious to hear some feedback :-)

*blush* Thank you :-)
That piece was a little work of love. I spent two days on it and I'd guess most visitors won't ever discover it ^^' But I had a lot of fun doing it and while on it one idea came to the next almost by itself :-) Very happy that you like it!

Hi guys, sorry I'm late to the grand relaunch (irl is a bitch). Really, really, really well done. What a fantastic job. I'm so glad you are all so dedicated to keeping this site amazing. I'm really impressed, it's awesome.I've been using the beta settings for a while and they've been a solid improvement even in beta stage but, this is something else.I just have one question; there was mention of the possibility of having the ability to create and save strategies to personal profiles for both the benefit of the profile owner and the wider community if the creator allowed, is that still in the offing, maybe sometime in the future, or has the idea been shelved?Again, I have to say congratulations for what you've achieved here, it's incredible.Well done!!!

Finally! :)
I take a look at various fights to find out whether they show all substitutes. If you find a fight that should have substitutes but it doesn't, feel free to leave a PM or comment – the community has been already so much helpful! ❤︎

I have a feeling the panel placed under description/tags is not used as often as it should. What do you think about it?

Yeah, I think most people who just come here for strats will probably not bother going beyond writing in the comments section, for those who regularly post their experiences, though, it's a good addition, so long as it proves useful to you mods in tweaking strats and rematch scripts.

And then some. Wow, the last weeks flew past like crazy. It's been more than a month since my last blog entry!

Good thing that changes right now :-)

There is a lot happening. Not so much in the pet battling world - Battle for Azeroth is still rather light on pet battling content, I've been told. But in Aranesh's "other" life (besides taking care of little Xu-Fu) things are pretty much in turmoil. And of course, everything happens pretty much at the same time. From a new job in a different country (and all the things accompanied by that) to the looming European data protection legislation coming into effect in less than two weeks. Hence the picture of this blog ^^
Those do affect Xu-Fu as well, so I've been silently working on adjustments on the page. I've reviewed everything that is potentially saving any of your data and rigorously took it out if it wasn't absolutely necessary, like Google Analytics (that's gone). The little advertisement panel is still there, but set to be anonymous - no data tracking or "personalized advertisement" allowed. If you're bothered by it in some way, let me know.
If you want to know the full gist of it, I've created a data protection article that details much more about what data Xu-Fu is using and tracking, what Cookies are used etc. - it's under News => Data Protection.

And with that all done and cared for... I realized that I forgot something important :O

It was Xu-Fu's third birthday last week! He sure came a long way, and is still going and growing strong :D Happy belated birthday to the little guy.
Much like in the last years, I would like to hold a small raffle for some goodies and been in touch with Blizzard to find some cool merchandise to give away. I don't know the details of it, yet, but as soon as I have something, I'll hold a belated birthday giveaway! Check back here or on Discord to not miss it :-)

Here in the States we have a Privacy Policy listed at the bottom of every website page informing visitors on how the website is gathering user data, how it's used, how to remove it, etc. along with Terms of Use of the site. Don't know if it's the same in Europe.
Happy Birthday Xu-Fu!

Xu-Fu is proud to announce a new feature that will come to you very soon: the Fight Organizer - 01, in short: FO-01

An until today unrevealed team of IT scientists working for Xu-Fu has analysed thousands of strategies from pet battlers all over the world and done the impossible: they created FO-01, an artificial intelligence that can create new pet battling strategies better than any human being!

The tool will be available through a simple button as you can see in the screenshot, which also shows one of the creative and innovative ne strategies the FO-01 came up with! Through its unrivaled computing power and intelligent approach, it will be able to find synergies between pet abilites no mortal could have predicted.

The remarkable restraint of the Xu-Fu scientists stands in stark contrast to other reactions from the industry. While some experts in the field of artificial intelligence doubt the results, stating simply "that is no AI and that is not creative work", others acknowledge the efforts. To the question if they are embarrassed that an unknown team of pet battlers managed to create what they have tried to do for years, the response was a unanimous: "Yes".

Edit 02.04.2018 - While the above would be phenomenal, it is obviously a creation of fiction based on the specific day it was posted :D

Well, heck!! :( It seemed a little far fetched, but I was truly excited to try it out. Then I read all the way to the end of the post. Disappointed!!!!!!!!!! Definitely a "Gotcha!" moment. Well done. :)

Yes, you read that right!
In the middle of working on the battle tables, I needed a bit of a break and decided to add a different some stuff that makes it easier for all my helpers: An article editor! It's almost done, and I've used it now to add a new little section: My development notes :D

You'll find them by hovering over "News" and selecting, surprise, "Development Notes".

Today I have a small update on the current development of wow-petguide.com.

Displaying strategies is certainly the key aspect of the page. Yet all new features of the last year were accessories to that. Cool ones, like the collection viewer, but not hitting the core element that brings battlers to visit Xu-Fu on a daily basis.

That is changing with the next update, because I am working on one of the - in my opinion - coolest features for Xu-Fu so far: a complete revamp of the Battle Table.

Those tables were the very first thing I created, almost three years ago. Over time, more and more features were added and it became clunky, slow, and hard to adapt. Time to change that.
Here are the key features that will go in:

- Required breeds! Finally!
- Automated substitute finder. No more "Any Moth" nonsense. The new table will check for every pet what other pets fulfill the requirements. Conveniently displayed for you to scroll through.
- Looking for a fast strategy, or one to level with, or a very reliable one? Tags show the way!
- A rating and favorite system
- Plus a number of quality-of-life features

There's still plenty to do but as of now you can test the whole thing! :-)
In your account settings activate beta features and you will see the new battle table everywhere.
A small disclaimer though: not all features are fully working, yet!

Nevertheless, if you have any ideas, questions or suggestions, I'm eager to hear them! Please join Xu-Fu's Discord channel and discuss it with me and the team: https://discord.gg/z4dxYUq

Agree Tie may be next to wowhead the most helpful site that doesn't try to drain you $$ (Zygor cough cough}. I've been here just a couple days and with the awesome Magpie link I was able to finally get the 400 pet achievement. Seeing they have An Awfully Big Adventure guide I just created the Elekk Plushi so am now after Trunks. Been a bit of a grind leveling up required pets but renewed the game for me.

The amount of timr and effort you are putting in is absolutely awesome. The time alone you have saved all of us is amazing. Thank you so much for the effort you and others have put in. The new updates sound bloody s×÷t hot :) Pardon the expletives.

Wow, I hope you know how much all of us appreciate your efforts. This sounds like an awesome update, and I'm sure a ton of people will find it super useful, particularly those who have a lot of achievements left to do.

Yesterday my web space provider performed a scheduled maintenance on wow-petguide.com. Some might have noticed the downtime of a few hours. It was indeed scheduled, but I messed up the times and thought it's next week.

Sorry for the lack of information about it, but luckily it all went fine and the page is back to normal! :-)

Today is the last day of 2017 and oh boy, what a year it has been! So much new content for us pet battlers. We saw the first pet battle dungeons with the Wailing Caverns and Deadmines, dozens of new pets throughout the year, and a whole new set of family challenges with the legendary pets of Argus!

2018 will bring us a new addon and with it surely a brand new set of pet news, and also for Xu-Fu time is not standing still. My efforts of most of the past year finally came to shine with a brand new user system, and lots more is to come.
One little thing I just added as the last update of 2017: a new landing page!

It shows you much of the latest news around Xu-Fu and is much more interactive and informative. Check it out: wow-petguide.com

There was also something about Discord. If you don't know it, don't worry there is no internal struggles going on ^^ It's a free chat platform that's taking over the gaming world by storm. For quite a while I had my own chat room there together with all helping hands, and fresh for the new year we are opening the doors for everyone who wants to join in!

So if you would like to get in closer contact with me and the group, give us suggestions or just want to chat about anything you want with like-minded pet battlers, you are more than welcome to

If you ever considered one of those shop pets, now might be a good time to revive those thoughts.
Blizzard activated a large Winter Veil sale that will last until January 3rd with many pets and also mounts reduced by to 50%!

There are some very few strategies that use the Blossoming Ancient and the Pandaren Monk, but there are plenty of alternatives. I dare say none of the shop pets are a necessity for battling at all. At least for PvE. In PvP they are all decent, but no top tier among them.